US Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Realtions Committee, stands with Harry Wu (L) before his testimony 04 May on Capitol Hill about China's use of death-row prisoner's organs for transplant. Amnesty International and Asia Watch also testified. (Luke Frazza/AFP)

News of organ harvesting at the Sujiatun concentration camp was announced at the March 11 Nine Commentaries seminar presented by the Australian Epoch Times. Following the presentations, members of the audience reacted to the shocking news. Some questioned the reliability of the report, and the discussion focused on the Sujiatun announcement. A member of the audience confirmed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has committed the crime of taking organs from living prisoners.

Yuan Hong said that he personally knew about the CCP taking organs from prisoners. Before coming to Australia, Yuan had worked in a Shenyang hospital. Shortly after he came to Australia, he read in a newspaper that a doctor from Tianjin Armed Police Hospital had revealed in the U.S. that the CCP was selling organs. Diplomats of the Chinese communist regime denied the accusations.

However, according to Yuan, “In China, it is known by many hospital staff members that the replacement organs used by regular hospitals basically all come from prisoners. Until we came abroad, we did not even know this was immoral and was an invasion of prisoners' human rights. In China, although there were no discussions among colleagues, everyone knew about it. Most pathetically, no one thought it was a problem.

“I was a doctor at that time. Although I did not participate in organ transplant operations, some of my colleagues did. Whenever I saw them change to a multicolored uniform (dressing as soldiers for the occasion), I knew they were going to the execution site to take a prisoner's organs.

“The hospitals in China at that time were normally ranked. For example, to get rated as top rank, the hospital must perform some sophisticated organ transplant operations such as cornea transplants, skin operations, kidney transplants. However, there was no place to buy organs, and they were not affordable. Also, people do not normally donate their organs. In order to do a kidney transplant, the hospital had to bribe the Bureau of Justice in order to get the special privilege to be informed when a prisoner was going to be executed.

“The organs were all from prisoners; everyone knew that. The procedure in obtaining organs normally was that when a doctor or nurse was informed, he or she would go to the execution site immediately. The hospital would push the patient to the operating room to wait for the organ. As soon as the gun shot was fired, the hospital would start the operation to remove patient's diseased organ. At the same time, the prisoner's body would be moved to an ambulance to have the organs removed.

“The executioner would be aware that the prisoner's organs were going to be harvested; hence he would not kill him with one shot. According to my colleagues, it takes time to harvest the organs. If the prisoner dies too soon, the blood does not circulate and the harvested organs will be of no use. Hence when the prisoner is in the ambulance, the doctors begin to take out his organs while he is still alive. When the organs are harvested, the prisoner is still bleeding. The organs are then kept in special containers and brought to the operation theater.

“Normally, family members of executed prisoners are informed and told to collect the body. But for those whose organs are to be harvested, family members are not informed. Family members are told only after the body is cremated.

“People's relations with each other are cold in China. Under the brainwashing of Communist Party culture, people have no kind thoughts. Their spirits are numb. They simply do not know this is an invasion of human rights and is contemptuous of human morals. I came to realize how terrible this is after I went abroad. Therefore, I believe the authenticity of the report made by The Epoch Times regarding Sujiatun's selling Falun Gong practitioners' organs.”